Cowgrit bought tickets for a Friday morning breakfast with the Easter Bunny in a local park. We arrived early and met Calfgrit7’s best friend’s family there.

We expected the breakfast to be something simple, like a continental style, but it turned out to be even simpler: mini donuts and mini bagels. Eating the bagels was like chewing leather. I broke my no-sweets diet by eating a couple of the mini crullers — I was hungry.

None of the boys wanted to sit with the Easter Bunny, but they were curious enough to view him from a distance.

After the breakfast, we walked through the park to see the fun stuff: a road train, blow-up bouncing houses, fire trucks, a juggler, a climbing wall, and a few costumed mascots. We wanted to start with the bright red road train, but the engine was smoking heavily. I asked what was wrong, and they said the battery caught fire. Okay, that was out.

So we visited the fire truck, McGruff the crime dog, and the boys and I played in one of the blow-up bounce houses. We watched the workers raise the climbing wall, and the other mom with us asked if I was going to climb the wall. I mentioned how difficult it would be to climb it with a coat on (it was pretty chilly, still, that morning). She said I was making excuses.

“Alright,” I said. “She’s questioning my manhood. Hold up Cowgrit, I’m gonna climb this wall.” I took off my coat and handed off my cell phone.

I stepped up to the gate of the fence around the wall and told the guy there I wanted to climb. There was no charge, but I had to sign a waver. Yeah, that’s a sign of a hardcore challenge. I entered the ring and looked up at the wall from directly below.

“Wow,” I commented.

“Yeah,” said the attendant adjusting the harness for me. “You don’t realize how tall it is until you’re standing under it.”

The attendants said the wall is 30 feet tall, and I could see the angle was not a straight up 90 degrees. It leaned out over me, so not only would gravity be pulling me down, it would be slightly pulling me away from my grip.

I’ve climbed some short walls, but never one so high that I needed to wear a harness. I’ve seen the harnesses, and they look quite uncomfortable. The way they strap around and under, I always imagined they would at least pinch sensitive parts.

I got the harness on, put the helmet on, and turned to look at my family and friends watching me. They were taking pictures and joking about how I was holding up the little boys and girls in line behind me. I wasn’t the only adult wanting to scale the wall, but most of the participants were under 12 years old. [That’s probably a 10-year-old girl up on the wall in the picture.]

So I reached up and grabbed ahold of a couple of protrusions and began my climb. Scaling a good climbing wall is as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge. You have to figure out the puzzle of where to reach and step to set up your next reach and step. And every moment you’re holding on thinking is another moment of wear on your muscles.

I work out regularly, and though I’m no where near anything like a body builder or super hero, I’d have thought my muscles tone enough to handle climbing 30 feet up a wall. But this exercise uses some muscles I’ve never really worked. My forearms and wrists were tiring fast. By the time I reached the top (and I surely did reach the top), my forearms were burning. It was all I could do to hold with one hand to use the other to reach and squeeze the bulb on the air horn — the victory trumpet.

Toot, toot! The attendant far below me called up for me to just let go and let the winch slowly lower me down. That’s easy to say, and easy to think about, but actually letting go is much harder. It’s so unnatural to just lean back and let go while hanging 30 feet above an asphalt parking lot with just trust in a rope and winch. I decided to just climb back down, but I found that was going to be impossible — not only were my forearms and wrists sore and tired, I couldn’t see below me well enough to judge where to step or how to shift my grip. It seemed like I was going to fall one way or another: by slipping or by releasing.

I swallowed the big lump in my throat and leaned back, let go of the wall, and fell. To my immense relief, the rope held and the winch unwounded very slowly. I gently lowered to the ground. Also to my immense relief, the harness did not pinch; it was not uncomfortable at all even with all my weight in it.

Once I got my feet firmly on the ground, I turned to my fan club and pointed at the mom who had questioned my manhood. “HA!” I shouted. The attendant helped me untangle from the harness, I took off the helmet, and I walked away from the wall a victor. But my forearms and wrists hurt all the rest of the day.

* * *

Hopping the Pond

Today I start my long flights taking me to Sweden for the week. I leave my home airport, Saturday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, headed to Chicago. I leave O’Hare airport at 11:00 at night and arrive 9 hours later in Copenhagen, Denmark at around 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday.

I plan to continue blogging from Sweden, but because of the time difference, and probable jet lag, I don’t know what kind of schedule I can keep. I’m excited and anxious. The next time I post here, I’ll be on another continent.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’ve quit WoW. Again. I actually canceled my account a couple of weeks ago, and the end of my subscription came the very next day. I uninstalled and deleted all my WoW files. My quitting seemed abrupt to my friends, but I’d been considering it for a few weeks.

I’ve complained before that my friends all switched faction from Horde to Alliance, and went on to out-level me in Alliance. They’d all reached level 70 before I reached level 60. They were already working towards heroic-level instances while I was grinding my way through the low 60s.

I really like WoW, but it really had become a grind at the end. Before entering Outland, my human priest character was exploring areas I hadn’t seen or been to before with my old orc hunter. Playing was still pretty much just grinding through the levels, but at least the places and quests were new and different from what I had experienced before.

Then when I went into Outland, in Hellfire Peninsula, my human priest was doing all the same quests, in the same areas that I had done with my orc hunter. The names of the quests were different, and I was based in a different town, but the actual work and terrain was the same.

When I hit level 63, all my friends were so far into the end-game adventures and gear that I really didn’t think I’d catch up and be able to take a real part in their raids for several more months. I found myself trying to play as much as possible so I could catch up faster. It just was taking too much of my time and attention.

I figured I should just give up on the game. Besides, there are some fantastic-looking first person shooter games that I’d like to try. FPSs used to be my favorite computer game style, but I haven’t played a new one in two or three years. I’ve been looking around at computer upgrades, and I’ve found some stuff that’ll let me play Crysis and Call of Duty 4 — games I’ve been dreaming of for months. So in a couple weeks, I’ll be testing out a new video card and a hot new game.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The whole family was loaded in the mini van on our way to Calfgrit7’s soccer practice. I was driving, Cowgrit was in the passenger seat, and the boys were in their seats behind us. We had just run an errand for me, so we were traveling in a part of town we don’t usually drive through. The rush hour traffic on the two-lane-plus-turning-lane road was much more than we expected. We slowly rolled along with the long line of cars, through a couple traffic lights and around a turn.

At last, up ahead we saw the intersection where we needed to turn left to go on to the soccer park. We were still probably a quarter mile from the lights, but we were in a long line of barely moving traffic. The traffic in the other lane, going the opposite direction, was light. The center turning lane was vacant. No one was in the lane all the way from where we were in the line to the traffic lights far up ahead.

Cowgrit and I were talking about the amazing traffic as we slowly inched along, and when we got under probably 200 yards away from the intersection, I saw a shopping center on the left, about half the distance to the intersection. Seeing a CVS drug store, I remembered there was something we needed to get at a drug store, and I thought, after a quick stop, we could drive out the other side of the parking lot and get on the road we needed to be on without waiting longer in this traffic.

Cowgrit suggested we could just pull into the turning lane and go on up. I thought that an okay idea, and I pulled into the center lane and started on up.

We’d only just got into the lane and started going, not fast, when we saw a city police car sitting on the left side of the road. Oh crap, I thought. Cowgrit made some gasp as she saw him, too. I knew I had pulled into the center lane far too soon for the shopping center, so I could be busted.

But really, in my defense, the center turning lane was completely open, and everyone in the long line was turning right or going straight. We could see the left turn lane all the way up to the intersection, completely empty of cars. I didn’t pull out and fly or anything — I was being careful and slow. But just as really, I had done a wrong thing. A dumb thing.

I went ahead on up, turn into the shopping center parking lot, and  drove to the front of the CVS drug store. The short whoop! from the police car siren startled me, as I hadn’t noticed the cop actually come after me. He was right on my bumper. Crap, crap, crap. Crap on a stick. I had been just too impatient, and thought I could “cut a corner”, so to speak.

The cop got out of his car, and I put down my window. When he approached my door, he didn’t say what I expected to hear. He didn’t say, “Let me see your driver’s license and registration.”

He said, “Do you realize you just crossed over a double yellow line into a one-way turning lane?”

“Double line?” I asked, honestly surprised. “A one-way turning lane?”  I thought the center lane was just a normal turning lane for both directions of traffic. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t see a double line.”

The boys in the back seats were absolutely quiet. Our mini van has never been so quiet with the whole family in it. Calfgrit7 was worried that his daddy was in big trouble, and Calfgrit3 was just confused as to what was going on.

“Are you familiar with this area?” the officer asked.

“I’m familiar with the area,” I said, “but we live further down the parkway, and I’m not familiar with this road.” I was being truthful.

The officer and I talked for a couple minutes, and he was nice. He also mentioned the early pull into the center lane, but he seemed most pointed about the double line and one-way lane. He had me by the short hairs, and could have been smug and prickish in front of my family. But he wasn’t, and for that, he, whoever he is, deserves my thanks.

I was very nervous, embarrassed, and trying to keep a straight face and be honest without saying anything that might get me in more trouble. Being pulled over by the police is a terrible feeling. You just feel helpless and nervous. Especially when you know you did wrong and even did it willingly.

“You’re going to the CVS?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

He ducked his head to look around inside the van, noting the wife and two kids. “Are you in a hurry for something?”

“No,” I answered. “Just need to pick up something, but not medicine or anything important.”

“Okay. I’m going to let you choose how we handle this,” he began. “I can let you drive back out the way you came in, go down the road, turn around and drive back this way. I want you to pay attention and notice the yellow lines and the turning arrows on the road. Also notice the skid marks from all the accidents we’ve had to clean up after from people pulling out into that turning lane too soon and against traffic.

“Or I can write you a ticket that will cost one hundred seventy-five dollars, and put four points on your license.”

Cowgrit spoke up, “We’ll take the drive.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll drive back and pay attention.” He was going easy on me financially (four points would be terrible for my insurance — I haven’t had a ticket since I was about 20), but he was making sure to lay the explanation on thick.

I thanked him, and he went back to his cruiser. He followed me out of the parking lot and then let me go. I did as instructed and went back down the next intersection, turned around, and came back.

We paid close attention to the road markings. Actually, where I had pulled into the center lane was not a double yellow line and was not a one-way turning area. But between that point and the shopping center entrance was such a spot, about 20 yards long. So I hadn’t actually missed the double line when I pulled into the center lane, and I couldn’t see the double line ahead until I got closer (at which point it was too late, having already started). But if I had just stayed in the long line of traffic until a more responsible distance from the shopping center, I wouldn’t have gone through the illegal spot.

So I felt better that I hadn’t actually crossed a double line, but I was still very wrong for pulling out so soon. I couldn’t fault the officer for pulling me, and I couldn’t defend my stupidity.

And to add an interesting end to this story, before we reached a “reasonable distance” from the shopping center to pull in, we passed the cop with his lights on, having stopped another driver. This time, though, the cop stopped him on the road, right in the center lane. The driver had apparently done the exact same thing I had done — pulled into the center lane too soon and drove through the double line and one-way turn area. This new guy was alone, in a little sports car.

I bet he got a ticket. He didn’t have the sad and worried faces of a family to move a cop’s heart to forgiveness.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I was headed to a meeting in the building next door to my office building. My hands were full with a water bottle and some paperwork, and since the morning was chilly, I had my coat on — it’s about 200 yards between the buildings. I walked through our currently empty company cafeteria, to use the side door, as I have done a dozen and more times. But this time, the door wouldn’t open. I leaned against the door and then bumped it with my hip a couple times, but no open.

Oh well, I thought, it’s locked. It was just before 9:00 a.m., so I figured someone just forgot to unlock the door from overnight. The door is a common glass door, set between two glass walls, with a metal bar across the middle at about waist height. Right under the bar is part of the frame with the word “PUSH” clearly printed. The bar doesn’t move in any mechanical way, and I had been pushing on it as I have done many times in the past. But push wasn’t working. I noted the frame and lack of hinges on my side and knew that pulling was not an option.

I walked back through the empty cafeteria to find another exit. There was one near the cash register, and before trying it, I asked the cashier if I could go out that door.

“No,” she said, “it will sound the alarm if you open it.”

“Oh, okay. How can I get out on this side of the building? That door is locked.”

“Locked?” she asked. “It’s not locked. You just have to touch it with your skin to open it.” She gestured to mime opening the door with hands.

I had tried opening the door with my coated elbow. I walked back to the door. I put my bare had to the metal bar and the door opened right up without resistance or sound.

I’ve never heard of such a gimmick for opening a door. Nothing about the look of this door suggests any kind of unusual high technology. There’s a badge-swipe panel on the outside, but that’s not out of the ordinary for office buildings.

A skin-touch sensitive door. That’s kind of a cool concept the more I think about it, but I’m not really seeing the functional advantage of it. A gimmick for a gimmick’s sake? Something just to fool and annoy me, personally? Whatever.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com